Limits at Infinity Here we consider limits at infinity using Maple.

Recall that the definition of x lim f x = L is that given e O 0, there is an /N

M O 0 such that if x > M, then f x K ! e. Graphically, L this means that if x is large enough, the graph off x lies in the horizontal strip LK L C e . See the following graph: e,
2.0

1.8

1.6

y 1.4

1.2

1.0

0.8 10 20 x 30 40

We see that for x bigger than, say, 19, the graph lies entirely in the blue strip. Moreover, the oscillations seem to (and really do) dampen out and the graph gets arbitrarily close toy = 1. We can investigate limits at infinity with the computer or

calculator by (1) graphing the function for large x and inspecting the graph to make a conjecture about the limit, or (2) using built-in commands to calculate the limit. Of course, you also need to be able to calculate limits at infinity without the use of technology. For the graphical approach, we consider the following example. Example 3 For each of the following functions: (i) Plot each function for large vlaues of x. (ii) Use the plot to conjecture the limitof the function as x goes to N (iii) Determine precisely the limit of the function as x goes to N. 1 C t sin t a) e t = t sin t b) f x = t 2 x3 C 7 x c) g x = x2 Solution: a) The plot of the first function for large values of t is:

1.5

0.5

10

20 x

30

40

50

K 0.5

K 1

Clearly (why?) this function does not approach a horizontal line as x increases without bound. Therefore we do not expect that there is a limit. (And there is none.)Question: Can you carefully verify that there is no limit? b) The plot of the function in part b for large values of t is:

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

50 t

100

150

K 0.2

K 0.4

We expect that the limit of this function is zero as t increases sin t 1 without bound. Since % , and since t t 1 lim = 0 (why?), we have, via the sandwich theorem, t /N t sin t lim = 0. t /N t c) The plot of the function is, for large x,

60

50

40

30

20

10 5 10 15 x 20 25 30

It seems clear that there is no horizontal asymptote here. In 2$x 3 C 7$x 2 x2 C 7 7 fact, we may write = = 2 xC and 2 x x x from the last expression it is easy to see that because x grows 2 7 without bound as x increases and because gets arbitrarily x small as x increases without bound, the function grows like2x; i.e. it does not have a limit. We can calculate limits without appealing to a graph as well. There is a built-in command "limit" that will calculate just

about every limit we're interested in. (Though it sometimes has 23$xCx trouble...) For example, let's calculatex lim x . All we 3 /N 9 Cx need to do is O limit 23$xCx 9 Cx
x
3

, x=N ; 0
(1)

As another example we calculate x lim /N O limit 5 1C x

2$x

5 1C x

2$x

, x=N ;
e10
(2)